


Far-Flung

by DaFox12



Series: Far-Flung [1]
Category: Batman - Fandom
Genre: Far-Flung Future, Gen, Terror, maybe too close to Arkham Knight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-21 11:25:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4827317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaFox12/pseuds/DaFox12
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the far-flung future, Dick Grayson is married with kids and is Batman. His life is perfect, if not a bit difficult, until someone kidnaps his son and threatens his family, both Bat and biological.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Dick remembers.   
He remembers the day they had their first kiss. It was a dark, stormy day, like any other in Gotham, but, as they sat in costume an a rooftop, a small parting of the clouds displayed the magnificently orange sun rising. Their lips had met, and she vanished moments later, leaving Dick to ponder what exactly had happened. 

He remembers the day he proposed and the sun was there, too, glinting off of the ocean they stood in front of. He remembers her face, shocked and amazed, and excited beyond belief. Bruce had even let them take the night off of patrol. 

He remembers their wedding, magnificent, her smile and her hair, everything about her in absolute perfection. And the smiles on his brothers' face. Even Jason. And Bruce, too. Everyone. He remembers that amazing and special day. 

He remembers the anticipation of her giving birth to their first child, the excitement of having a son..... That all melted away when he saw the pink blanket. 

He remembers watching her grow. Remembers her amazement when she found out her dad was Nightwing and her mom was Batgirl. Her adamancy about being Batgirl herself one day. 

He remembers the day his son was born. His younger twin. His spitting image. Tim's pride in being "Uncle Timmy" again and Uncle Dami watching Emily while her brother was being born. The expression of amazement on her face when she first saw him. 

He remembers when he became Batman and when he let his children become Robin and Batgirl. 

He remembers it all. But he doesn't remember much of the pain. Only a few horrible events. Jason's death. The day Barbara got shot. His and Bruce's falling out. But there was an upside to all of it, too. Barbara recovered. Jay came back. He fixed things with Bruce. But of it all, he can't remember a single time when he was as scared as he is now. His son, his beautiful boy, has been taken. And whoever did it is going to die if they hurt him. Hurt his pride and joy. His son. His boy. His Robin.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day Robin went missing.

It had started as an average day. 

"But which ones are my real uncles, daddy?" Dick looked at his son from the head of the table. Alex tilted his head in wonder, arms resting on his 3rd grade math homework. Dick gave a half smile and responded.   
"Your real-real uncles?"  
"Uh-huh. Emily said that we don't have any real uncles." Dick chuckled slightly, a throwback to his old, trademark smile. To those who knew him then, he was a much older man now. The toll of being Batman and a father both on duty and off was effecting him. Of course, nowadays he didn't have do do it alone. He had Red Hood (Jason), Nightwing (Damian), "Beyond" (a new recruit whose name was Terry McGuiness), Spoiler (Damian's current girlfriend, named Carrie Kelly), Batwoman, (Barbara, his wife), Robin (Alex Grayson-Wayne, his son), Batgirl (Emily Grayson-Wayne), a new, mysterious ally called Azrael, (another one) and the occasional assistance from the retired Red Robin (Tim Drake, retired to live with his wife, Stephanie and his kids). Dick wasn't the same, happy, dorky man. He was, on rare occasions, but he could barely handle what he had.   
"You do. They just aren't biological." Alex tried out the word.   
"Bio-lo-gi-cal?"  
"Right. They are your adopted uncles. But that doesn't make them fake." Dick talked to the boy with an unusual calmness, almost demeaning. But those who knew him knew that he was really just amused by his son's question.   
"What about Uncle Wally and Uncle Roy? And Uncle Caldur and Uncle Conner? Are they adopted, too?" Dick gave a familiar grin.   
"Nope. They're.... Ah..... Pretend uncles. Not actually uncles at all- not like Uncle JayJay or Timmy or Dami." Alex pondered the thought when Emily walked in.   
"Hey, dad?" She slid over to tap Dick on the shoulder.   
"Go ask your mother." She scoffed a little, and rolled her eyes. Alex looked up from his math homework.   
"You didn't even know what I was going to ask!"   
"I'm Batman. I knew what you were going to ask, be glad I didn't say no." Emily rolled her eyes again, this time giving a fake huff and crossing her arms. She walked out of the dining room.   
After dinner, the somewhat normal family was joined by Emily and Alex's grandfather Bruce. He was a tired man, though not as old as he made it seem. The family cuddled close on the comfy old Wayne Manor couch (When they had Emily, Dick and Barbara moved in). Even Bruce sat on the same couch as everyone, though not as close as Alex, Barbara and Dick. Selina was sleeping after a long day. Later into the night, Bruce excused himself to the cave to prepare. Dick went upstairs to check on his adopted-stepmother, then went down to suit up, family following suit.   
Later, on patrol, Dick was paired with Alex. Some days he went with Alex, some with Emily. After dispatching several minor threats and meeting up with Beyond, they followed some new intel to an underground safe-house beneath a Gotham apartment complex. Upon entering the safe-house, several armed thugs attempted to jump Alex and Dick. The immediate response was an escrima stick to the side of the head for the two in Batman's path and those in Robin's path were on the floor in pain following Robin's attack of a slide beneath his legs then a push off of the ground into a kick to the head.   
"What did you do wrong?" Came Bruce through Batman and Robin's earpieces.   
"B, leave him be. He did just fine." Dick rolled his eyes and Alex giggled at his dad's insubordination.   
"He's going to get himself killed."  
"Bruce, this line is for information, not for you to bark at us through this line. Now, the specs on this place, please?" Bruce grunted in reply. A metallic whir that came from Batman's mask and his eyelid covers slid down and flashed blue with the blueprints.   
"Vent." Batman pointed to a nearby vent cover. Robin already had it open. Batman strode towards it, ruffling Robin's hair on the way. On the other side, Batman and Robin witnessed a strange sort of meeting, dropping down to intercept the information without another thought. That was a mistake that costed Dick his son's life. All of the hustlers that were in the safe house noticed Batman and Robin, as planned.   
"You can tell us what we want to know, shut down the operation, and go to jail quietly, or you can get your as-" Batman looked at Robin. "-butts kicked." Several of the petty criminals snorted and rolled their eyes. Moments later, they were unconscious on the floor. A projector lit up a wall behind them and a video clip began to play.   
"Greetings, Batman. I have returned." The hideous, masked face of Scarecrow emerged from the depths of the video's darkness. His face was different. Scarred. "Your true nemesis. The Scarecrow. We have faced each other before, and we face each other now."  
"Jonathan Crane is dead. Who are you?" Demanded Batman. Bruce chirped some useless factoid in his ear.   
"Your worst enemy. Your worst fear." The lights went out. Gas filled the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, please, please comment & kudo! It seriously gives me the motivation to write more. If I get writer's block I won't write again unless I get a comment or learn that people really, genuinely like my work.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dick wakes up to his son missing. Bruce gently breaks the news. Dick has never been more afraid.

When Dick awoke, he was unmasked, strapped down to an operating table. He grunted and flailed about. His suit was off, too. He had a sheet draped over him gingerly. When he lifted his head, he looked around. To his left, he saw Spoiler.   
"Thank god, Carrie! Is Alex alright?!" It was less of a question and more of a demand. She jumped, as if awoken from a daze.   
"Dick! You're awake!" Her eyes lit up through her mask. She pulled it off and whispered into her communicator.   
"WHERE IS ALEX?!?" Dick nearly exploded in anxiety. Carrie shifted uncomfortably before biting her lip. When she turned to look at Dick's uncharacteristically crazed face, her red hair fell in front of her eyes, providing, in her opinion, a nice shield between her and the terrified man in front of her.   
"I wish I knew. When both of your vitals went down, Emily and Barbara dashed to save you. Damian and I picked up their fight and they came back with only you. Alex is missing." Dick's anger melted away along with his snarl.   
"Take off the straps and let me go look, Carrie." Carrie frowned and took a step back.   
"No can do, boss. Barbara and Bruce told me not to. There's an unknown pollutant in your bloodstream. A derivative of Crane's fear toxin."   
"Carrie, I am perfectly fine. Let me go. Now. I won't ask again." Dick's words came with an unsettling calm.   
"I....... I can't." Carrie looked like she could be convinced, but as soon as Dick moved his mouth to talk, his adopted father emerged from the darkness of the cave.   
"Dick, you aren't well. That toxin..... We don't quite know all of the side effects yet. The system is still analyzing the sample of your blood we took. I'm afraid of the effects it may have on you and-"  
"I DON'T CARE ABOUT ME, MY SON IS MISSING AND I WILL GO OUT AND FIND HIM AND KILL WHOEVER HURT HIM AND-" Dick flailed madly under the straps that held him down.   
"Dick, if you were in your right mind, would you be screaming at me right now?" Dick's eyes were crazed and mad, and he looked as if he wanted to murder Bruce for stopping him from going to rescue Alex.   
"Let. Me. Free. Now." Dick was once again in the monotonous, eerily calm tone from before.   
"I can't. Carrie, go help them. I'll watch over Dick." Dick's wild gaze fell on Carrie when she pulled her purple mask back on. She faded back into the blackness of the cave.   
"If it makes you feel any better, son, if I were in your place, I would feel the same way. If Damian, You, Tim, or even Jay were missing......"  
"Why can't you let me see my son? To help him?"   
"We don't fully know the properties of this new Scarecrow's toxin, nor if it is safe for you to go out in this condition."   
"When will the results be back?" Dick was calm, this time in a normal sort of way, not an angry one. His question was met almost immediately with a sharp chirp from the depths of the cave.   
"I'll be back." Bruce was consumed by the blackness of the cave. Dick sat patiently for what felt like hours. A check of the clock to this right told him that it had, in fact, been three hours. Dick's jaw dropped. Immediately, he began to struggle against the straps that bound him. From seemingly thin air, he produced a small knife, easily able to cut through simple straps like these. He tore off the sheet and stomped into the depths of the cave, bare feet pierced by the cold of the cave floor. His thoughts were wild about his mind, wondering where Bruce was and if something had happened and what he could do if they were armed when all he was wearing was pants.   
The dim glow of the Batcomputer illuminated his path as he found his way to a hunched over Bruce. He was clutching his chest.   
"Bruce? Bruce, what's wrong? Bruce? Bruce?! Dad!!??" Dick flipped over the body of Bruce and took vitals. He was dead. For a few hours now. Dick's mind raced. He could literally not imagine a world without the man who raised him. After Bruce retired, Dick never even considered the fact that he may die soon. Based on the results of the samples Dick took, Bruce had died from a heart attack induced by the fear toxin in his bloodstream. Out of ideas, Dick went over to the Batcomputer to contact Barbara. He sat in the chair, the chair that the man who raised him used to sit in, and read the message that he hadn't noticed before. It said:  
"I have them, Batman. I have them all. If you want them alive, you come alone, unarmed, and unmasked. See you at the place where it all started."  
Dick's instant idea was Crime Alley, but he shot that down in favor of the fact that Scarecrow knew his secret identity and therefore knew where his crime-fighting life had started. He set off in uniform for an old, familiar fairground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what would make me SO happy? You to comment on my work! And for you to tell your friends to read this, because I really want lots of people to see my work. Thank you for reading my story.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of Dick's world.

The gates of the fairground were no issue for Batman, even without a grapnel. He didn't even touch the top. He landed on the gravel with an almost inaudible crunch. The old streetlight that flickered on and off caused the worn down funhouse to cast unnerving shadows on the gravelly old ground. Batman had, up to this point, had his doubts as to whether or not the fear toxin was in him at all, but when he saw one of the many shadows move, he had no more doubts.   
Upon entering the big top, a gust of fear-tainted air rushed out to meet him. The eerie whispers and bugs skittering the floor didn't phase the man as he stormed to the only illuminated location in the big top, with the tied silhouettes of his family were visible. Emily noticed him first. Her oceanic blue eyes lit up when she noticed her father and she elbowed her mother to get her attention. Both looked awful. The mother and daughter's twin red hair was missing in clumps, both looked exhausted and ravaged. But the small jump of excitement in Emily's eyes made Batman that much more determined to give Scarecrow a special kind of pain.   
"Welcome, Dark Knight. Welcome." Scarecrow spoke from a high, familiar catwalk, revealed from the light he turned on. Hanging from the height was Beyond, unmasked and bloody, Spoiler, bloody and limp, but grasping Nightwing's hand tightly, Nightwing, looking miserable and shredded, worse than his girlfriend who couldn't have been here more than an hour, and Red Hood, splinters of blood red fiberglass littering the floor beneath him. The worst sight of all for Batman, though, was Alex. He was tied to an old spinning board, the one used years ago to throw knives at, gagged, mortified and scarred, bloodied, bruised, broken, and miserable. The awful sight before him made the pain of Bruce's murder seem far away, seem like something that belonged to another man. Never had his family seen the look on the usually happy man's face, one of pure, unbridled anger. He was going to kill Scarecrow if he got the chance.   
"Your insolence and mistakes cost all of them their lives. You killed them, Batman." The creepy man gave a sickening laugh and the world in front of Batman melted away.   
When he awoke, he was unmasked, wearing only pants and strapped to an operating table in nearly the exact same spot as before. He had a perfect view of his family and allies. To his left, he saw the crumpled body of Azrael, probably murdered while trying to save them. Scarecrow sat perched on the same catwalk as before, eyes lighting up when he saw the crystal blue ones of Dick. His eerie grin appeared again as he produced a knife from his ragged cloak. He walked over and stopped above Red Hood. All Dick could do was scream and struggle.   
"D-do it you bastard.... I'm not afraid of dying again....." As Scarecrow began to cut the thin rope, Hood looked at Dick and gave a solemn nod that resembled a salute. As he began his descent, Emily shrieked. Dick winced as he watched his brother fall to his death in an identical way to that of his parents. By the time he hit the floor, Damian was already falling. Then Carrie. Then Terry.   
"Did that hurt, Batman? Seeing their hopeless expressions? Oh, but I doubt that such pain can even come close to the pain you are about to feel."   
Scarecrow descended painfully slowly down a latter that once belonged to Haly's Circus. His feet clicked on the old floor as he paced towards Emily and Barbara. He produced a small pistol from his cloak and aimed it at Barbara's head. She spat blood at him.   
"Take your best shot. Kill me. I'm not scared." Scarecrow's eyes widened for a moment, but quickly returned to their normal, squinty state.   
"Such brave words. A pity, really, that you must die." Scarecrow squeezed the trigger. Barbara's eyes closed and her head fell limp. Emily gave a sickening and defiant scream and tried to reach out to hit Scarecrow, but her fist fell short.   
"It seems only fitting that your son, the one who got them trapped here in the first place, die last. So, my dear, that means it is your turn to die." In the blink of an eye, Emily was gone. Dick couldn't scream any louder if he had a microphone.   
"Wake up, child." Scarecrow's slow, unsettling voice woke Alex from a state that could be anything but sleep. His eyes fluttered open. They were defeated. Broken. But he didn't look afraid. And then he was dead too. In a fit of mad power, Dick destroyed the bonds that held him and flew over to Scarecrow, ripping the gun away from him and throwing it into the dark all around him. He grabbed Scarecrow's throat and, without a second thought, snapped his neck.   
He threw the limp body of Scarecrow away and gathered his kids and wife, hugged them and sobbed until everything faded to black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Isn't it exciting? The end is nigh!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not everything is as it seems.

When Dick's eyes opened, he was screaming. And tied. Again. He shook and shrieked against the binds holding him down, desperately trying to free himself. When he laid back down because he heard footsteps, he heard a solid metallic clang. That meant he was in costume. But how? And he also felt his utility belt! Was it possible that none of what he had just seen actually happened!? No. It was too real. Hurt too bad for it to be fake. His thoughts were shaken away by the approaching men. Lowly thugs. Nothing of issue. Batman had kept his eyes open a fraction of a second too late. Dam-darn. Batman berated himself. He needed to learn to stop swearing in front of.... Well, it didn't much matter anymore. He didn't have to worry about teaching his kids bad language anymore. They..... They weren't alive anymore. And these thugs were about to feel that pain.  
"Ahh... Get the boss. This guy... He's awake!" Batman loosened his right bind and reached out to punch the nearest thug. Simultaneously, he loosened his other binds with his left hand. The second closest thug came at him with some sort of piping. Batman gripped the piping and pulled him in for a nasty, sick-sounding head butt. His legs made quick work of a third, wrapping one around his back and using the other for a swift kick to the face, knocking him into a fourth and final thug. The first staggered back towards Batman, back for more. Batman lunged, using the thug's shoulders to guide himself, and landed behind the low-life delivering a sickening flurry of punches followed by a huge kick. The thug fell to the ground, unconscious. A hit to the side of the skull was dodged and returned, and Batman took the second thug's pipe to smack him with. The final thug took Batman off-guard and got in a good hit. Batman cursed and returned the punches ferociously. All of the thugs were now on the floor, completely unconscious.  
"WHAT!? HE'S AWAKE!? WELL DON'T JUST STAND THERE YOU IDIOT! I PAY YOU ALL VERY WELL! DO YOUR JOB!" The voice of Scarecrow shot from up above Batman. Somewhere. Batman cocked his head to the side in curiosity. The Scarecrow he killed must have been a decoy Batman felt a pang of guilt for hurting the decoy like he did. Batman gritted his teeth and intercepted seven more goons, all dispatched with ease. He dashed up the steps, towards the sound of Scarecrow's voice.  
"Agh!" Scarecrow shrieked loudly. To assist his sight in the pitch-black warehouse, Batman turned on his detective vision. He flung open the door between him and Scarecrow to see Batwoman viciously slamming her fist into the face of the villain.  
"I swear, you had better not make me ask again. Where-is-" she spun her head around and noticed her husband. "-Batman?" She knocked Scarecrow out with a swift elbow to the face.  
"I swear, if you EVER do that to me again!" She tried to punch her husband who caught the fist. He pulled her in for a hug.  
"You-I-it was awful. I thought you were dead. I..... I thought....."  
"What? What's wrong?" Batman shook his head.  
"We'll talk about it at home. Let's get a move on."  
Upon returning to the cave, Dick squeezed his children tighter than he ever had before. He held a Bat-Family meeting, and explained what had happened in horrifying detail. He smiled again. He hadn't lost anything. Even Bruce was still around to yell at him in his ear for every single mistake he made. And you know something? Dick was completely fine with that. So long as he had his family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I really hope you enjoyed this, but how am I supposed to know if you don't tell me!? Let me know!

**Author's Note:**

> If you like this story at all, comment. Seriously, take 30 seconds out of your day to make mine. Please. Be the most amazing person in the world.


End file.
